Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)(77)

I could hear him screaming again. He’d been crying for days. Something was wrong. It had to be wrong. But Poppa wouldn’t take him to the doctor, he didn’t believe in doctors. He said that the Lord would heal us if our souls were pure enough to be saved. But my brother wouldn’t stop screaming. I’d been listening to him scream for days as I sat in the hole, in complete darkness.

My body tensed when I heard the front door slamming open and my poppa’s heavy footsteps pounding across the floor. I could hear the rattling of bottles and I knew he’d been out to get more drink. My legs pressed together when I knew what that meant for me. It meant he’d be coming for me again tonight, or today, or whatever time it was.

I winced when I heard my baby brother crying again. Then I heard a crash and my poppa screamed, “Shut the f*ck up! Shut. The. Fuck. Up!”

But my brother cried even louder, more and more.

Lifting my hands to my ears, I began to rock; counting to eleven as I rocked back and forth. Back and forth.

A light switched on upstairs, the painful brightness creeping through the small cracks in the door. When the light shone on my naked stomach, I looked down and frowned. I could see my ribs. My stomach had gone in, and my fingers looked small and thin.

I jumped as my brother cried again. I heard my poppa shout out, “I’m done with the two of you, ruining my f*cking life. The retard and the one that won’t stop f*cking screaming!”

My heart began to race as my brother’s crying got closer. My poppa’s footsteps came closer and closer, then the lock of the door above me opened, and I scurried to the side of my cell.

My nails scratched at the skin over my veins, just as my poppa jumped down into the dirt.

The light from upstairs flooded into my small cell, and when I looked up, I moaned. My screaming brother was in my poppa’s arms. Isaiah was bright red, and sweat covered his body. My poppa had a knife in his hand. When I met his eyes, he bent down and threw the knife at my feet.

It was the knife my mama had used on her wrists.

I stared at the knife, wondering what he wanted me to do. Walking forward, he put my brother down next to me. I stared at Isaiah and pressed myself further into the exposed dirt wall. I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t touch him. I would hurt him, like I did Mama.

My poppa stood up and looked down. “You killed your mother, now you look after this screaming little cunt too. I’m done with you both.”

I panicked as he began to move away. “No, don’t leave,” I pleaded. I held up my arms for him to see the scratches and blood that I’d drawn. “I’ll try harder to remove the flames. I’ll try harder… I… I love you,” I whispered, and pushed my bleeding wrists out further.

But my poppa didn’t reply and he climbed out of the door, so drunk he almost fell. He drank more and more since mama died. “You two being born was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I could never love you. No one could ever love a sinner like you.” Then the door shut, trapping me and my baby brother inside. And then he started to cry. And then he started screaming. The noise from his screaming hurt my ears. But he didn’t stop. He never stopped crying.

Hours and hours passed and he didn’t stop. The light was still on upstairs, but I hadn’t heard my poppa since he left us down here. I was hungry, I was thirsty, but he never came back.

And Isaiah got worse.

When I leaned over, he was looking at me, but his breathing had changed. It was deep and slow, but his dark eyes, eyes like mine, were looking up at me, his thin arms reaching out.

My stomach ached as I said, “I can’t touch you… I’ll hurt you…” But he kept on crying. He kept on screaming until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

My hand fisted into balls as I fought the flames inside. As I prayed to God that they didn’t hurt him. But my poppa had been gone so long that I didn’t think he was coming back. Then Isaiah’s breathing became shallower, but I could still see him looking up at me. And I had to hold him. He was scared and hurt… like me.

I had to hold him.

Holding my breath, I let out a scream and reached forward, picking him up in my hands, then I cradled him in my arms.

But his skin wasn’t hot now. My baby brother was freezing cold. His eyes were strange—glazed over. But he kept looking at me, and I began to rock, like Mama used to do. And I sang, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, just like my mama used to do. It hurt my throat to sing. I was so thirsty, but I sang to make Isaiah feel better.

I wanted him to feel better.

“Twinkle twinkle little star… how I wonder what you are… up above the world so high… like a diamond in the sky…

But it didn’t help.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered when I stopped singing, and heard a crackle in his little skinny chest. But Mama had asked me to look after him, to protect him.

So I began to count. I counted his breathing, and all the time I never looked away from his tiny face. “One,” I whispered, as he took in a slow deep breath, “two,” I continued, hugging him closer to my chest. “Three,” I counted, but his breaths were slowing, “four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…” I noticed that Isaiah’s arms had dropped, his skin was ice-cold, but his eyes were still open and looking at me. Then I waited for him to breathe again. I counted, “eleven…” and I waited. And I waited some more. But nothing was happening. My body started to shake. Isaiah’s dark eyes were unmoving, his body was too still.